“Tower Heist” is a movie full of swindles, shoplifting, lies, deceptions and fraud. There are also two perilous car chases, a bit of blackmailing and an assault on a Federal agent.

It’s also one of the biggest feel-good comedies in years.

Perhaps that’s due to the years we’ve been living through. Because in this movie, the real criminal is a Madoff-type billionaire. And our heroes are working folks only trying to steal their own money back.

Who isn’t going to cheer them on?

It’s a nice comeback for director Brett Ratner, who stunk up the “X-Men” franchise, and drove his own “Rush Hour” films into the ground. And it’s an enormous return for Eddie Murphy, who hasn’t been funny in a long time — at least, not in public.

Oh, Murphy’s gotten laughs offscreen, as the voice of Donkey in the “Shrek” series. But he’s squandered so much of his comedy capital on crummy films that — in terms of audience good will — he’s about as bankrupt as the characters in this movie.

Luckily his work here should help him make a sizable deposit into his old account.

Murphy’s surrounded by a large cast — a smart thing, as his co-star is Ben Stiller, a lead whose charms can wear thin. But Michael Pena is charmingly goofy as a not-too-bright elevator operator. And good-sport Gabourey Sidibe is funny — and clearly having great fun herself — as a randy, Jamaican-born maid.

The plot has them all working in a condo building, “The Tower” — the renamed, but still gaudy Trump monstrosity off Central Park — with fatcat Alan Alda as their prize penthouse tenant. Except one day they discover that Alda is a swindler who, as their pension-fund manager, helped himself to their small savings.So, convinced he has a secret stash of cash somewhere in his apartment, they decide to steal it back.

To do that, though, they need a real thief — which is why Stiller recruits his neighbor, Murphy, who falls right back into the streetwise comedy he unleashed back in his early days on “Saturday Night Live,” where he played gentlemen of leisure and poetry-spouting cons.

In fact, he always seems just about to go into his “Kill My Landlord” poem here — and when he unleashes that familiar, huge, gap-toothed smile, you can’t help but smile back.

Good as Murphy is, you do wish the film gave the other actors a little more to do — or just provided more jokes in general. There isn’t a character or line here that couldn’t have used some punching up.

And although things pick up quickly once the actual heist is underway, the lead-up — the recruiting of the team, the rehearsal of the plans — is a bit tame. (Compare this film to a classic comedy caper like “The Hot Rock,” and, well, it doesn’t compare at all.)

But Murphy is consistently good, and the movie’s characters are just naturally sympathetic. You really want these poor schlubs to get their very justified revenge — just like you want to like this movie. It co-opts you from the very start.